Micklem Newsletter

Welcome to your child's learning!

Welcome back!

We have had a fantastic couple of weeks after returning from summer. There has been lots of brilliant learning, and it is so nice to see so many new and familiar faces around the school this term. Year 5 have already had a residential trip; we have had votes for House Captains and School Councils (winners will be announced on Monday); and had a visit from Nourish to support our project into ensuring that we are promoting healthy living across the school.

I am really looking forward to this year, and cannot wait to see what adventures it leads us on. I am looking forward to working with our staff, you parents, but most importantly your children. I cannot wait to see where their learning leads them!

Have a wonderful weekend and stay safe!

Mr. Swift

Learning in Classrooms

Nursery

We have settled into the new school year well and have welcomed our new friends. We have enjoyed exploring our classroom and particularly love digging in the garden.

Reception

Reception have had a great start to a new year. We have been getting to know each other and learning how to use our classroom and finding out where things belong. We have enjoyed going on the Daily Mile and are loving Forest School. We have been singing, moving and sharing our 'happy heart moments' at the end of each day! 🙂♥️

Year 1

Welcome back everyone! We have had a fun packed couple of weeks. In Science, we have been exploring the senses. We had fun tasting different foods that were bitter, sour, sweet and salty. In Geography, we have been looking at maps, atlases, globes and Google Earth. We have started to draw our own maps e.g. of our bedrooms, a treasure map and next week, the school playground. As always, we have been singing and dancing and enjoying each other's company. We now have our own mini Forest School in the garden, with a mud kitchen and a secret camp!

Year 2

We have had a very busy and exciting first couple of weeks in Year 2! In English, we have started reading a new book called The Great Explorer. We have been making predictions, using our inference skills to think about what the main character might say, and exploring the story together. We will soon be putting our ideas into practice by writing our very own explorer story! In Geography, we have been using our own exploring skills to investigate the location of our school and have started learning about the four compass points: north, east, south and west. In Science, we have been investigating different materials and thinking about their properties and why they are suitable for different purposes. We have also loved making the most of our own outdoor area, where we have enjoyed playing, exploring and working together.

Sunshine Learning Community

It has been wonderful to see everyone return with such enthusiasm, ready for a brilliant year of learning together. Our classroom is already a hub of discovery, and the children have made an incredible start to the term by exploring the UK. In science, we became mini-investigators as we learned about forces, testing the different pushes and pulls that shape the world around us. We also had a wonderful time celebrating International Dot Day, exploring our unique creativity and making our mark. We are incredibly proud of how quickly the children have settled back into school life, and we look forward to an amazing term ahead!

Year 3

What a busy first two weeks back at school for the children in Year 3! It has been great spending time getting to know the children and introducing them to the exciting year ahead!

Over the last two weeks, we have started our new book 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and started our Maths unit on place value. In Science, we have started our unit on 'light' and have been investigating how we can protect ourselves from the sun.

Keep up the good work everyone!

Year 4

It has been a very busy first few weeks for the children in Year 4! It has been lovely getting to know the children and we are all looking forward to the year ahead.

Over the last few weeks, we have started our new book the BFG and started our maths unit on place value. In Science we have started learning about sound and have been investigating how it travels differently though different mediums.

Year 5

We have had a very busy and exciting week! We have continued to write our internal monologue as 'Auggie' from our book Wonder. For Science, we started to make paper mache planets - we will paint these next week!

For the rest of our week, we have been at Phasels Wood! The children have taken part in lots of activities including: Land Zorbs, Cresta Run, Kayaking and lots more! They have all thoroughly enjoyed themselves and we can't wait for your children to tell you what a wonderful time they've had!

Year 6

Year 6 have had a brilliant week, which started off with their speeches for house captain. Year 6 are excitedly awaiting the results to be announced. It has been a full on start to the year with lots of assessments and learning how to be role models. Well done year 6 keep up the hard work!

Experiences and Opportunities

Forest School

After carrying out a pupil voice, Year 2 and The Sunshine Learning Community have requested this half term's Forest School sessions to include tool work and lots of different cooking activities.

This fortnight, the children enjoyed creating leaf prints (hapa zome) using wax paper, leaves and hammers.

We also had fun orienteering with our friends, using directions.

A bonus for us was seeing different types of mushrooms growing and trying to identify them!

Phasels Wood

Year 5 have had an amazing time at Phasels Wood. We 'made' our beds, took part in: Shelter Building, Cresta Run and a game of hide and seek in the dark using our torches!

On day two, the children had the opportunity to take part in Kayaking, Human Hungry Hippos, Land Zorbs and Spider Mountain. We finished the night with hot chocolate and a story.

To complete our Phasels wood experience, the children have the joys of tidying their rooms! As well as the opportunity to take part in the final activities.

We have loved every minute and can't wait for you to hear what an amazing time the children had!

Art Club

The children were introduced to a beautiful portrait painting by Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun. They all became art detectives and spent time carefully looking at the details. They had many questions for the lady in the painting: Who are you ? Why have you got a big hat ? Why have you got paintbrushes in your hand? Why are you dressed like a princess?

We learnt that in the National Gallery, out of 2400 paintings, only 27 were by women artists. Everyone thought it was " unfair " " not right because girls can paint as well as boys " and Reggie guessed that this painting was by a woman artist. Maya said " See , a girl can paint ! "

Everyone was surprised that it was a portrait of the artist herself, and Bella made this fantastic comment " She is showing us that she can paint like boys, because she has paintbrushes in her hands "

I am looking forward to continuing to explore this painting together. Well done Art Club!

Celebrating Success

Golden Points

This year, we have introduced Golden Points. A way of celebrating individuals and classes that are following our school rules of:

Be Kind. Show Respect. Aim High.

This will then be rewarded with Golden TIme activities on a Friday afternoon.

Blue House

Green House

Red House

Yellow House

Attendance

Nursery

91%

Reception

89.8%

Year 1

97.9%

Year 2

95.1%

Year 3

94.6%

Year 4

93.2%

Year 5

91.5%

Year 6

91.7%

Congratulations to Year 1 for aiming high with their attendance this week.

Learning of the Week

Every week, we celebrate extraordinary learning that has taken place in classes. It may be that they have pushed passed an obstacle in their learning; worked on their presentation; thought about how to help others amongst other things.

Our Learning of the Week goes to:

Reception

William for recognising print in the environment and noticing that Wednesday had a 'W' in it like his name.
Liam for a fantastic conversation talking about the Pyramids that he had drawn in his picture.

Year 1

Ida-Ray for amazing Science knowledge about the Senses.
Hannah for writing a clear, punctuated sentence to describe Plum the dog.
Oscar for great participation all week.
Ossie for fabulous fluent reading.
Hunter for some fantastic sentence writing in phonics.

Year 2

Freddie has worked incredibly hard this week and has shown excellent listening skills. He always tries his very best and has been extremely helpful to both his teachers and his friends. Freddie has shown a positive attitude and great effort throughout the week. Well done Freddie!
Adrian came up with excellent ideas when thinking about what a character might say and used his imagination really well. Adrian also used the power of three to choose three fantastic adjectives to use in his sentence. Well done Adrian!
Loella-Jade has shown lots of passion and enthusiasm for reading this week. She has been doing lots of reading both at school and at home and is becoming a very fluent reader. Loella-Jade has shared excellent ideas about our english book 'The Great Explorer'. Well done, Loella-Jade!

Year 3

Wyatt has made a fantastic start to Year 3! He has shown great confidence, listening and perseverance in his first week.
Zuzanna really impressed her adults this week when completing her science work. She was able to separate different light sources to non-light sources.
In Maths, Year 3 have been partitioning numbers up to 1000 and Bernice was able to do this whilst showing great perseverance when the numbers got a little bit more complicated!
Inspired by the book ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, Rosa was able to create and write about her own personalised sweet, explaining all about the sweets special features!

Year 4

Ava- for writing a brilliant character description.
Ella has made a great start to Year 4 , she has shown great resilience and made a huge effort with all of her work.
Dominic has come back and really thrown himself into Year 4. He has contributed brilliantly to class discussions and aimed high when completing all of his work.

Year 5

Imani has tried incredibly hard with our English lessons. She has been able to successfully use a fronted adverbial and parenthesis!
Lily has been a pleasure to have in Year 5! She shows enthusiasm in every subject and is always willing to contribute to class discussions.

Year 6

All of year 6 for a brilliant attitude to the start of year 6.
Emily CM reader of the week for great contributions in guided reading lessons.

Sunshine Learning Community

Alfie for coming back from the summer holidays with confidence and enthusiasm to learn. Keep it up, Alfie!
Eliza for showing an excellent writing attitude this week. Using her phonics to sound out words and her imagination. Well done!
Margot for settling well into the Sunshine Learning Community this week. She has shown an interest in our learning and is beginning to join in with activities.
James for returning to the Sunshine Learning Community after the summer holidays with resilience, especially when it comes to his writing. He has confidently used his phonic knowledge to communicate his ideas. Keep it up, James!

Well done to everyone who worked so hard this fortnight, it is fantastic to see so many positive learning experiences!

Pupil Leadership

Food Ambassadors

Our Food schools ambassadors the Lemondades, have been busy this week working on our flavoured water station project. They cut up fruit which we then topped up with water and the ambassadors served to their peers at lunch time. It was a great success and they all had lots of fun!

School Council

Each class has now chosen two school councillors to represent them on the School Council. These pupils will share their classmates’ ideas, help make decisions, and take part in projects to improve our school. We’re proud of everyone who put themselves forward and look forward to seeing the great work our new councillors will do this year!

We will be announcing the winners on Monday morning!

Notices and Reminders

Please may we take this opportunity to remind parents/carers of our uniform expectations. Children should wear:

● Navy sweatshirt or cardigan

● White polo shirt

● Black trousers, shorts, skirt or pinafore (No jogging bottoms, leggings or cycling/fitted shorts)

● Black shoes or entirely black trainers. (no boots or colourful trainers)

Pe kit:

Navy pe top
Navy shorts or jogging bottoms (no fitted or branded shorts please)
Trainers

Children should also have a named pair of wellies in school.

All items should be clearly named to help identify lost property. Items of uniform can be purchased through our supplier Mapac. We thank you in advance for your support in promoting pride in our school community.

Concentration Aids

I would also like to remind parents and carers that children should not be bringing toys (including fidgets) from home into school. This is for a number of reasons, not least that your children get very upset if their toy gets misplaced or broken.

Each class has a new box of 'concentration aids' this academic year, which any child can use to support them with their learning.

Letters

Please find all of our latest letters here: https://www.micklem.herts.sch.uk/letters/

If you have any questions regarding anything coming up, do not hesitate to ask.

Upcoming Dates

16th - 18th September - Year 5 Residential Trip to Phasels Wood

25th September - Macmillan Coffee Morning

1st October - PTA AGM

3rd and 4th November - Parents Evenings

PTA

If you are interested in becoming a PTA committee member or would just like to find out more about the PTA, please join us at our AGM on Thursday 1st October at 2.30pm.

pta@micklem.herts.sch.uk

SEND and Family Support

DSPL8

The purpose of Delivering Specialist Provision Locally (DSPL) is to ensure that the needs of children and young people with Special Education Needs and Disability (SEND) are met as locally as possible with parents, schools, settings, and services working in co-production to make more effective use of available resources.

Hertfordshire is divided into nine DSPL areas, with Dacorum being DSPL8.

DSPL8 provides a variety of support to families and can sign post to services locally. Their Autumn 1 2026 Parents/Carers Newsletter is now available to view on the parent pages of their website here. It includes lots of information about FREE workshops, courses and events coming up this term. These are some that stood out to us, but there are many more available:

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